Charlie Wilson's War Stretches the Imagination

Hey,

Zia wanted the money ........ only through him.......Americans gave it to him........ that only implies monetary support.....and some logistic one ..........rest is Paki karma.......

I think apart from the movie being a typical hollywood formula box-office, it does establish the fact (which many people here dispute) that the Afghan Jihad had started far before the americans jumped in.

Remember the footage of a fighter saying "Don't give us rice and bandages. Give us guns".

Aray aap! Nechay ki manzil pay? Aur woh bhi CHOWK ki!

Good, now I don't have to watch the movie!

Ras,
Here is another review of the book, movie and the documentory!
From a web site!
(I did not write this post!-HP)

Here's a great piece from a dear friend who served with U.S. special operations forces and had a distinguished military career. This is his take.

OK, I've seen the film and the History Channel documentary, and I've read the Criles book, and as mentioned earlier I was involved in part of this.
As far as the movie goes, I liked it very much. It's very well done and nicely captured the feeling of that period in time and the politics of the situation. I think there are some time compressions, and some things were deleted, but it's still worthwhile. I particularly liked Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, except he made him smarter, funnier and more sympathetic than he actually was.

Now to the grisly details. After FBNC I finagled a job on the Army Staff. I'd been operating off the books for almost five years and with a new wife and two children, I needed to get back into the mainstream of the Army. Regreening it was called, and for those who'd served at FBNC for any length of time, at that time it was mandatory if you ever wanted to be promoted again. And I had decided I did. I was assigned to Strategy, Plans and Policy Division (or Directorate) as the Africa guy, but at that time I had absolutely nothing to do with Afghanistan, Pakistan or anything else in Central Asia. I'd been there about four or five months when the XO came in my office and dropped the file on my desk. Until I opened it I had no idea anything of that nature was going on. The file dealt primarily with the STINGER xfers. Until I saw the documentary I had no knowledge of the arms buys from Egypt or how we'd been supporting the Muj to that point.
Within a week, ten days at most, the first major problem appeared. We had already sold STINGER Basic to the Pakistanis and they were having trouble with it. Soviet acft were crossing into Pakistani airspace in pursuit of the Muj and the Paks couldn't hit them. Since STINGER was in the process of being fielded in our Army, and had never been tried in combat before the Paks started firing at Soviet border crossers, the credibility of the whole program was at stake and the Army had to respond to the Pak's concerns.
A friend of mine named Jerry Fry, also on the Army Staff, was the Pakistan desk officer. Jerry had been Chief of the Army Section in the ODRP (the MILGROUP). He had some of the languages, knew the organization and personalities of the Pakistani Army, and because of his assignment on the ARSTAFF was the logical guy to pull together the response. He quickly put together what amounted to a STINGER MTT and flew to Pakistan to see what was wrong. He took with him several drones, a REDEYE, one or more STINGERs and a trained gunner. A demo was arranged at their air defense school (if memory serves it was on the coast~on the Arabian Sea) and in the hands of a competent operator it was quickly shown that there was nothing wrong with the missile. Subsequent investigation showed the problem was lack of training and maintenance, and an organizational problem in that the missiles (MANPADS-Man Portable Air Defense Systems) had been taken away from the Chief of Air Defense and given to the frontline corps commanders. Without a proponent the missiles quickly deteriorated and the gunners lost proficiency. The Pakistanis had just absorbed this lesson when the first shootdown in Afghanistan occurred. Engineer Captain somebody (I remembered his name as Abdullah, but in the documentary your friend Milt Bearden says his name was Jaffer or Gaffer. I'd go with Bearden. I wasn't in theater at the time and didn't hear about it for at least two days after it happened). At any rate he crept out into the airfield at Jalalabad (as I recall) and torched at least two Hinds. The movie shows three. I'm fine with that too. Any whole number is fine with me, but that shootdown demonstrated to our Congressional critics the system worked and had utility in that tactical environment, and I think it showed the Muj that we had given them a good weapons system. It also embarrassed the Pakistanis in that the Afghans could shoot down a Soviet plane, but they couldn't.
Inspite of the positive jolt the first shootdowns gave all of us, there were still problems. The Muj hadn't really mastered the system yet, and were very much inclined to fire out of range. In the early days if they could see it they'd shoot at it. The missile only had a slant range of 5-8 miles, and could be tricked by a snowbank or a brushfire. The solution to the first problem was provided by MG Donald Infante, then the boss at our Air Defense Center and School. Within a week or two he and his staff developed a simple template affair to be worn around the neck on a lanyard. It looked like a short ruler and had three or four different sized holes in it. When held at arms length each hole corresponded to one of the Soviet frontline acft. If the gunner could identify the type of acft he was looking at all he had to do was hold the template up to the sky and when the wings or the rotor blades touched both sides of the MiG-21 hole or the Hind hole it was in range.
The solution to the other problem(s) involved better training for the trainers. The facility designed to train MANPADS gunners was called a Moving Target Simulator, an instrumented dome-like affair that simulated various engagement scenarios likely to be faced by a gunner in a NATO environment. They cost about $1M apiece in 1985 dollars, and at the time I believe there were only three in the World, one in Germany, one somewhere in PACOM(?), and the one at Fort Bliss. Infante made the one at Bliss available to us to train the trainers. By day it was used by US students, but at night it was used by 5th Group and Agency guys to perfect their skills so they could train the Afghans.
I had to laugh when they introduced the Vickers character as their weapons expert. I frankly didn't know there was an Afghan Working Group at Langley. I assumed somebody was managing it, but until I saw the documentary and read the Criles book I had no idea who. The way it really worked, we didn't hear a squeak from them until they got in a jam and or didn't know what they were doing. The Oerlikon business was a prime example. They didn't know an Oerlikon from a Krupp coffee maker. All they knew about Oerlikons was what they read in the manufacturer's manual, and it was our guys who had to try and convince them, and Wilson, that the Oerlikon was not the answer to their problem. The same kind of problems occurred with the STINGERs. Once they got over there someone figured out they knew how to fire them but didn't know how to use them. Over a long weekend I sat down and wrote tactical manuals for the employment of STINGER in Afghanistan and Angola. I'd been to Angola during the war for independence and knew the area where they would be used rather well, but I'd never been to Afghanistan and had to rely on two officers who had, the Army Library, and the two relevant field manuals to come up with an abbreviated field manual for use in the high altitude, cross-compartmented terrain typical of that environment. The combination of improved training, Infante's target acquisition template, and the tactical manuals seemed to work. Planes started falling out of the sky.
The other guy who should have received credit in the documentary but didn't was MG Charles W. Brown. Charlie Brown. For some reason our whole branch got transferred from DCSOPS to DCSLOG, and when it did Charlie became our boss. In the Criles book he makes the point that Wilson couldn't have gotten away with what he did without Tip O'Neill's tacit consent. Charlie was my Tip O'Neill. The Vice Chief of Staff of the Army at the time was Max Thurman. One of the Vice's primary responsibilities, over and beyond running the staff, is to husband the Army's resources and I was in the process of stealing a large number of his STINGERS for something he most emphatically did not approve of. Charlie was a barely reformed Nebraska cowboy. As he once laughingly explained, he was the only man he'd ever met who'd gone to college on a polo scholarship. Almost thirty years of service hadn't taken the ranch twang out of his voice, but he did not look healthy even 21 years ago. He had a smoker's cough (that later developed into cancer) and a perpetual prison pallor brought on by too many days and nights in the Pentagon. He'd made a career out of letting people underestimate him, but he was wonderfully personable and insightful, a truly honorable man, and extraordinarily shrewd and capable. Also, one of the most skillful bureaucratic infighters I've ever known. Thurman wasn't too hard on lieutenant colonels and majors, but he was death on colonels and general officers, and in addition to carrying our mail on the Hill, I suspect Charlie took most of the tongue-lashings and abuse meant for me. I owe him a great deal, for this and many other things, and will always think of him with profound respect and gratitude. As an afterthought, it was Charlie Brown who first called my attention to the Criles book.
My part in all this was to provide the missiles, train and coordinate training for the trainers, develop the tactical manuals for the Muj and UNITA, and address problems, political and military, that impacted on the use of the weapons in-country. One part of that involved symplifying the Program of Instruction for STINGER gunners. Early on I discovered about a third of the POI was diagnostics and maintenance. I suspected neither the Muj or UNITA would waste much time on that so threw it out and rewrote the whole thing to emphasize target identification, acquisition and training. One of the 5th Group NCOs who actually trained the Muj later told me they took care of their missiles like they were camels. If the weapon whistled or gurgled, or lit up when they twisted this or that nob they knew the missile was feeling well and would engage. If it didn't the missile was sick and needed attention from the Americans. Usually just a battery swap, but everyone likes to feel useful.
Since there were no moving target simulators where the training was being done, at one point the UNITA trainees were using the resupply acft to practice target acquisition. I don't imagine the pilots would have been particularly pleased if someone had told them, but nobody got shot down who wasn't supposed to so I guess it worked out.
When I left the program the Muj and UNITA between them had shot down 77 Soviet/Cuban acft. The piece de resistance was an IL-76 shot down in Angola with a full load of Cubans aboard. I've forgotten the body count but it was most gratifying.
Other odds and ends:
1. The documentary makes the point that the Army was opposed to turning over STINGER to UNITA and the Muj. This is true.
~ We were just fielding STINGER and hadn't yet fully equipped the Regular Army with the new MANPADS. Some frontline units committed to NATO were still using REDEYE, a first generation system of considerably less capability.
~ We'd invested millions in the technology and were probably a full generation ahead of the Soviets at that point. There was a fear the missile would fall into Soviet hands and they would reverse engineer it, to our detriment. And something like that did in fact happen.
~ We understood the potential benefits of introducing STINGER into Afghanistan as well as anyone, but by this time we'd also heard about Charlie Wilson. Legislative Liaison had told us about his alleged drug use, his drinking, his hit and run, and his lack of discretion, and we didn't want a program we'd spent millions on held hostage by someone we didn't trust.
~ There was also the fear some of these missiles would subsequently be used against us or our partners in Western Europe.
~ By the same token we were also aware that this represented, to a degree, payback for Vietnam. A mildly funny story related to that point. During the period of the STINGERs greatest success our DATT in Moscow was invited to the Frunze Military Academy to make a presentation to the students and faculty. During the Q and A the bright young Popovs got on him about US assistance to Afghanistan and Angola. He listened for awhile then said, "I'll make a deal with you. We'll provide exactly as much assistance to the Mujahadin as you did to the North Vietnamese. How will that be?" That pretty much ended the Afghan discussion, but it's fair and accurate to say the Army and the program manager were conflicted over the xfer of these missiles to guerrillas.
2. In the documentary Charlie Wilson, the real one, says the Chief of Staff of the Army came to see him to explain why we shouldn't give STINGER to anyone outside NATO. Maybe, but I doubt it. The Chief was John Wickham, and he was the last senior officer to find out about it. When I briefed Vuono, then the DCSOPS, he asked me if the Chief had been briefed and I responded, "Everybody but him." If Wickham had gone up the Hill I would have had to do a briefing book and I was never asked to do that. I don't think the real Wilson would know the Chief of Staff if he tripped over him. I suspect the man he saw was Charlie Brown; I know he was up there to see Wilson on one or more occasions. At least once I was with him.
3. Clarence (Doc) Long was exactly as depicted in the film and documentary.
He represented a working class district in Baltimore~Bethlehem Steel and the shipyards were in his district~and he was virtually impregnable. Primarily because he had the largest admin support staff in Congress. Twenty or thirty people working on nothing but constituent complaints. Long's district got the best service he could provide and they loved him for it, but he was not the brightest light in Baltimore Harbor and held his chairmanship only by reason of seniority. In 1980 I heard him make the exact same speech he made in the film~ several times. They captured it perfectly.
4. Mike Vickers: Inspite of my snide comment about his bona fides as a "weapons expert" I suspect he was a good guy. I've looked at his picture and I don't recognize him, but that doesn't mean anything. I imagine he spent most of his time at Langley beavering away on the project. Like everyone else, trying to make chicken salad out of pig's knuckles, and gradually becoming invested in its success or failure. Hats off to him. May he live forever.
5. Same general comment on Gust. I've looked at the pictures of him until my eyes cross and he doesn't look familiar. If he dressed the way he looks in the still photos I've seen, I probably thought he was someone's bodyguard. I'm kind of sorry I didn't know him. I have a feeling it would have cheered me up considerably.
6. As for Milt Bearden, he does look familiar. Can't say where, but it wasn't the Embassy. I've never been there. Possibly in the north, but more likely in Washington DC. I understand he's a fine man. Give him my respectful best wishes and congratulations on the recognition he's received. Anybody who can wetnurse Charlie Wilson for that long and to that effect deserves at least the Order of Bombas y Cuerpos, with a Gold Liver Clasp and diamond studded hernia belt.
7. Wilson did have a STINGER launcher mounted over the door in his office. Until I saw the History Channel documentary I didn't realize it was the one used to shoot down the first Hind, but it was there.
8. One of the other players in this melodrama was Jay Garner, later appointed by the Bush Administration to be the first political czar in Iraq. As a colonel he was running Artillery Branch in Force Development, the guys who decide how much of something the Army needs, and the STINGERS came out of his procurements. He was the same fine man then he is now. And reasonably good-humored about it.
9. And finally the matter of Chuckie himself.
~ I freely admit I wasn't around him much, but much of that was by design. From what I'd heard about him and his antics I knew we weren't going to be exchanging Christmas cards, and after the program achieved critical mass I didn't want to screw it up by some untoward remark. Particularly if it embarrassed Charlie Brown or the Army~or got me fired.
~ But, having said that he was an unlikable son-of-a-bitch, arrogant in an infantile sort of way and convinced of his superior insight and moral superiority.
~ The Defense Attache used his C-12 (a militarized version of the Beechcraft Super Kingair 200) to haul Wilson around in-country. On one of his trips to the north (probably Peshawar) Charlie had one of his girlfriends along and the pilot wouldn't let her on government transport for the return trip to Karachi or Islamabad, or wherever he was going. As I heard it the pilot wasn't being difficult, that was just the rules. Probably Congressionally mandated. Congressmen's wives were no problem, Embassy staffers and wives no problem, but girlfriends weren't supposed to fly at government expense and the pilot stuck to his guns. I'm told that in the next budget cycle Wilson struck the C-12 flying hour program out of the appropriations bill. The Air Force provided some training money from other funds, but there was turbulence in the C-12 program for the next several years. Two acft were taken out of service altogether and there were at least two crashes, both attributed to pilot error. As I said, I cannot confirm from my own knowledge that Wilson did it, but I was told he did by Legislative Liasion and the Air Staff, and a couple years later by someone in Attache Affairs. If he did I think that speaks volumes about his capacity for pettiness and his sense of entitlement. (If provoked I'll put in a request under the FOIA and see what turns up. Also have several friends who were C-12 pilots in that era, and I'll ask them about it.)
~ I also have heartburn with his abortive little flutter into Afghanistan. What purpose did that serve? As a soldier I hate to see soldier's lives put at risk to gratify the childish impulses ofan egomaniacal jerk. If the Soviets had known he was in Afghanistan, and God forbid they'd captured him, how would that have played out? Bearden would have had to commit everything he had in the area to save or rescue him, with what result? I wasn't anywhere close by when he did it, but I suspect Bearden was. (I can't imagine anyone would let Wilson go north without adult supervision.) I'd be interested in hearing what he has to say about it.
~ And finally, I'm irritated that a man like that receives so much credit for the efforts of the 200-300 Americans who actually made it happen. The Mike Vickers, Gusts, Infantes, Browns, Beardens, above all the 5th Group trainers and Agency pogues who were the interface between the Muj and America, and all the others who actually made Wilson's one unquestioned moment of inspiration and clarity a reality. With a nod from the White House they could have done it without him, but he couldn't have done it without us.
I understand since his retirement from public life he's become a lobbyist. That sounds about right.
In short, I liked the movie but I'm still comfortable with my original impressions of Cocaine Charlie, the man voted one of the twenty least effective legislators in the House of Representatives by House staffers. I cannot begin to explain the pivotal role he played in all this, and the fact so much good came from the conscience-striken efforts of such a trivial man. But it did. He was the maypole we all danced around. Perhaps the best way to rationalize him is to characterize him as one of Lenin's useful idiots. I doubt Lenin would appreciate the irony, but nothing else makes sense. If I'm ever near the Reagan Library I plan to stop by and see if there is some kind of PDM or presidential finding authorizing all of this. I can't believe Reagan or one of his senior staffers didn't know about or authorize it. I'm reinforced in my beliefs by the spate of recent articles about him by others who knew him back then, most recently Robert Scheer, of Creative Syndications, last Monday.
I should also mention in fairness that some of those closest to him still think he's a prince. Tomorrow I'll send along a msg from one of his former staffers who thinks he's wonderful. WTFO. Further deponent sayeth not.


glossary of some of the terms and abbreviations used in the post.

acft : aircraft
ARSTAFF : Army Staff (Pentagon)
DATT : Defense and Army Attaché
DCSLOG : Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, US Army (US DoD)
DCSOPS : Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, United States Army (US DoD)
FBNC : Fort Bragg, North Carolina
MANPADS : man-portable air defense system
MG : Major General (also Machine Gunner, but unlikely in the case above)
MILGROUP : United States Military Advisory Group
msg : message
MTT : Military Training Team
Muj : Mujahadeen
NATO : North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCO : A non-commissioned officer, also known as an NCO or Noncom, is an enlisted member of an armed force who has been given authority by a commissioned officer.
ODRP : Office of Defense Representative, Pakistan
Oerlikon : anti-aircraft cannon
PDM : Presidential Decision Memorandum
POI : Program of Instruction
Pogue : an offensive military slang term used by front line troops to describe non-infantry, non-combat soldiers, staff, and other rear-echelon or support units. A related term is the acronym REMF, or "rear-echelon mother fucker".
REDEYE : FIM-43 Redeye was the first man-portable air defense system (MANPADS)
STINGER : FIM-92 Stinger is a man portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile
UNITA : National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Portuguese: União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola)
WTFO : (Military slang): What the Fuck, Over! (1970's).
xfer : transfer
XO : Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO)

Ras sahib,

I love movies. I watch a lot of them. I make it to the theaters at least once a week...sometimes twice.

I saw this movie cause a friend recommended it. I knew tom hanks and julia roberts is a bad combo to begin with, and then after watching the movie, this was confirmed.

I asked my friend for my $10 and my 2 hours back.

This movie was trite, hollow, and moronic.

Ras: I read the book and saw the movie. The movie is quite true to the book, down to the looks of the characters (particularly Gus, the greek CIA-born agent). And the book seems quite true to the actual events.

One interesting piece not mentioned in the movie - Charlie Wilson was made an honorary Field Marshall (!!) in the Pakistan army by Zia. He was given the uniform in a secret ceremony, and told not to wear the uniform inside Pakistan.

tahmed writes " Charlie Wilson was made an honorary Field Marshall (!!) in the Pakistan army by Zia. He was given the uniform in a secret ceremony, and told not to wear the uniform inside Pakistan"

So you and the Zia ul Fcuq have this one thing in common, both of you worship the white man even as he fcuqs up our nation as the Americans have throughout our history...To be a Field Marshall you need to have fought a battle, neither Ayub nor Wilson fought with the Pakistan Army in a battle...

masadi #7 er...I didnt give him the uniform...your uncle zia did...but dont strain your fevered, complex-ridden brain with such details...

chaccha jee,

the article on charlie wilson was much better then the movie....movie sucked.

tahmed peon of the West writes "...I didnt give him the uniform...your uncle zia did"

Zia ul fcuq was your father's buddy, he was not my uncle. Now where do I suggest in my post that you gave it to him. I merely equate Zia's worship of him with your worship of him and what he represented. Have you forgotten a couple of years back while arguing on the Mujahideen/Taliban link you were using this fools book as if it were the Holy Bible itself...

tahmed peon of the West writes "...I didnt give him the uniform...your uncle zia did"

Zia ul fcuq was your father's buddy, he was not my uncle. Now where do I suggest in my post that you gave it to him. I merely equate Zia's worship of him with your worship of him and what he represented. Have you forgotten a couple of years back while arguing on the Mujahideen/Taliban link you were using this fools book as if it were the Holy Bible itself...

RE: #1 Laddu: Zia was always looking for an opportunity. He
was what is called Siyanah in the Punjabi language.

RE: #2: Zeemax: True, but I liked the ending too. At least
an attempt was made to hint at what went wrong.

RE: #3: Tahir: Mohtaramintezaar farmayiay. Aap kay oper
yeh CHOWK walay teesri manzil zaroor banayain gey.
Go watch the movie and let us know what you found.

RE: #4: HP: Thanks for the additional information. I hope
that you will write something on that period too since
I had left Pakistan already before Zia took over.

RE: #5: Hurricane Salim_C? The movie was made to entertain
American audiences. I never thought that I would ever
see a movie with a General Zia character in it which
would glorify alcohol and show some T & A too!

RE: # 6 tahmed Sahib:Field Marshall Charlie should have
taken over from Zia who left Pakistan in quite a soup!

RE: various masadi posts. Calm down sir. We know how
you dislike Zia and others. I hope that you have
changed your mind about BB by now.

I wrote almot 70% of this review before BB was murdered and 30% after. I was quite enraged (like masadi permanently is so I can relate). Glad that did not send this one out in its unedited form inclusive of my remarks on Zia and his lineage...

Ras sahib,

I am not Salim. Although I do consider himmy borther from another mother.

Re: # 5

An excerpt from my old article, 'Right Burqa Wrong Lips':

In the same garlic breath, the fantastic regime across the border claimed, “We don’t like Julia Roberts. Her lips are wrong for us.” I think, subliminally they admitted: Her lips LONG for us. Their insult will surely agitate Hollywood.

Re: # 5

An excerpt from my old article, 'Right Burqa Wrong Lips':

In the same garlic breath, the fantastic regime across the border claimed, “We don’t like Julia Roberts. Her lips are wrong for us.” I think, subliminally they admitted: Her lips LONG for us. Their insult will surely agitate Hollywood.

This movie didnot depict the truth. According to this movie the war was fought by only Afghans with American assistance in the form of arms and ammunation.
No credit was given to pakistan for winning this war and we all know that Pakistan played a vital role in the retreat of USSR making USA the only super power of the world and hence removing the balance of power.
Nowadays US does whatever it wants, it invade any country it want and is trying to invade Pakistan now. Thanks to Pakistan for making USA a Bull which has just broken its rope and is out of control.